It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

How to Lose: Battle for Gilneas

If you would like to enjoy a BG or two, there is a good chance that you have played with people that have not read the various “How to win” BG guides out there, produced by the likes of Cynwise, WoWInsider or even myself.

No, more likely you have played with people that have studied the “How to Lose” range of guides.

Yet you are perplexed. You have googled “How to lose X Battleground”, yet you haven’t been able to fin them.

Just to make your life easier, I am going to write just such a series of guides. Today’s installment is:

How to lose: Battle for Gilneas.

Don’t talk

To be honest this is a rule for all BGs you intend to lose.

Don’t even say hello to your team mates

If you talk to your team mates, you might form a temporary bond, become more than just a collection of individuals with disparate goals.

Worse yet, you may be breaking the ice and encouraging them to speak out when it’s important.

Do your best to discourage communication!

Don’t suggest a strategy

Whatever you do, don’t suggest a strategy, not even an intentionally fail strategy. If you do you may fail in your objective and by complete accident forge the group into a coordinated group of winners.

Don’t support a strategy that has been suggested

To do so might inadvertently suggest your tacit agreement with the idea of winning the BG and enlisted others to follow said strategy.

Even to call them out as a fool may encourage others to talk… Don’t let this happen!

Don’t call Incs

Occasionally calling out incs produces an unwanted result – support. Much better to keep quiet, let the node get capped and hasten the end of the BG.

If one of your team mates does call out incs, it’s time for drastic action… communicate, something like:

WW clear

or

WW under control.

That should turn them around.

Don’t inform people you are responding to their pleas for assistance

Whatever you do, don’t give any indication that you will support a node.

the player under attack may hold on till you get there

others may rally to your show of support.

Anyway, this would break the first rule of not communicating.

Silly me… you weren’t really going to support them were you?

Don’t call out healers

Healers slow down loses (if they are on your side) and speed it up if they are the enemy.

Your team mates are probably looking for healers to progress the win, but they are hard to see in the heat of battle, don’t draw attention to them.

Ignore your healers

Better yet, drag the whirlwinding enemy to your healers to bring them down.

Don’t mark your healers

…you might feel guilt if you knowingly let them die.

Marked healers draw your team mates attention. They will protect them, they won’t leave them at nodes by themselves.

Don’t give your healers a sliver of a chance!

Make sure you leave your healer to guard the node

You want your healer by themselves at a node for two reasons.

they are easy targets for enemy dps, which will speed up the turnover of the node.

a healer without allies to heal is a waste of a player in a BG – you want this. A healer is only good when they are in the thick of the action, keeping your allies alive, assisting them, your team, to cap and win the BG.

In addition to these two reasons, the healer may be aware of both of these points and leave the node. FREE CAP FOR THE ENEMY!

While you are at it, ignore their healers

Remember, don’t call them out and don’t hit them, unless and only if they are CC’d and your white damage can break it.

Ignore the plan

Someone offered a plan that might promote some group coordination? Ignore it, you know better!

Once a plan has been suggested and accepted, it is your task to ferment dissent. They want you to go left – GO RIGHT! Watch as a portion of your team follow you like lemmings to the cliffs of humiliating loss.

Make sure you pause 2/3 of the way to your destination, hesitate, head in a different direction, turn about, do loops. The game is now nearly lost.

Whatever you do, don’t subscribe to the concept that even a coordinated group with a bad plan can win, don’t let it happen.

Ineffectively soloing nodes will usually drag a couple of team mates to their death as well.

Wait until you are dead to call incomings

Being a smart player, you will be careful to ensure you aren’t caught for the weak willed traitor… errr Heroic Loser you really are.

So call out incs occasionally, but not as you see them approaching the node. Not as you engage with them. No you want to wait until it’s all to late, preferably long after you have died (you aren’t releasing are you!).

All being well, the first your team mates know of the node under challenge is your…

inc WW

…followed by…

WW has been assaulted by the winners!

You are the hero, solo them

A node protected by 5 enemies… They are no match for your heroics and all being well you can ruin the surprise attack and die so you don’t distract the enemies from your team mates.

It’s about you, not the flag

Even if the enemy have left the flag and you have a clear Ninja Cap opportunity, ignore the flag and engage the enemy.

Flag = team win = personal fail!

If they hadn’t left you at the node, there wouldn’t be an issue

If you are the one left at the flag, feel no guilt as you ride off into the sunset. They left you there so they could have all the fun, so really it’s their fault that the node is unguarded.

If it really mattered that much, they would have guarded themselves.

Fight away from the flags

Always, ALWAYS, fight away from the flag giving an avenue for an enemy ninja cap.

Never, NEVER, place AoE over the flag. This will destealth ninjas and interrupt capping.

Don’t ignore that guy baiting you off the flag

Remember, give the ninja capper room to operate.

Hopefully your team mates will follow you and forget the flag.

Chase the guy leaving the flag

This will ensure no incidental AoE interrupts the ninja cap, as well as encouraging your team mates to follow.

Ignore the guy capping your flag while there is that guy teasing you

Teasers always take priority over cappers, I can’t stress this enough!

Split evenly between the 3 nodes

There are 10 of you… Plenty to go around, so spread out. If there are three of you at each node, each can easily be overcome with a Zerg of as small as 5 players.

Thin you numbers.

Divide and be conquered!

Strategic numerical advantage is an illusion that must be avoided at all costs, pull out of a fight if there are more of you than them, hover on the outskirts to soak up any honor, but don’t tip the balance in your teams favour!

Better a static defeated force than a mobile victorious force

This whole fast response, quick assult team rubbish… when are you going to get a chance to do your crafting?

Encourage your team to sit at nodes in pointless combat with overwhelming numbers rather than sending an assault team to their barely defended node.

Aim for 2 nodes, settle for one

Cap 2nd and defend

Wiser words have never been spoken.

For one it drags out the battle and most importantly, you just need to loose control of one of your bases to turn a lazy victory into a frenzied defeat.

You can’t lose BFG with 3 bases, so make sure your team badly defends two!

Get two bases and enjoy the slaughter of your team, while the enemy losely defends their one based (ready to return to defend with that fearsome three letter call “inc”) and sends the rest of their team to assault your divided and overwhelmed team.

One base can win can’t it?

Better yet, encourage everyone to relax when you only have one base.. why try harder?

Relax when you are ahead 1600 to 1000

Make sure your team relaxes when you are ahead 1600 to 1000. Convince them you can’t lose… you can be sure you will!

You are already a head, why try harder.

What’s the chance that they could win at this point?

Sure they could turn their one cap into 3 and win in just moments, or settle for 2 and still outpace your points to win comfortably.

Chase the rainbow

Don’t offer BG supplies

Mage food, health stones, soul shards and buffs are for winners – no thank you

They unfortunately lend the impression that you want to run as a team, you care that people survive and can perform at their best.

Underprovisioned troops will perform worse, have to rely on the spirit healer for life, health and mana!

Start with a losing attitude and you are guaranteed to be right – you are always right, right?

Everyone’s favorite player is the…

lol noobs, Alliance always lose

Com’on, give up, get it over with, lets get the next queue faster

Stop trying for the node ffs, just let them win

L2P pplz

.. who says this even before the 1st node has capped.

Sure this sort of behaviour might just make me more determined, but there are many players out there that take this as the signal to let go using a simple calculation

(Trying to win + effort) < (Queue time + free honor)

Break your teammates spirit early and often!

Edit: As often seems to be the case, Cynwise and I are working on a similar project at the same time. So if you want to know How to Win: Battle for Gilneas, rather than my How to Lose, go read his excellent work, which includes his trademarked topological maps (you know, the ones that I have a coffee mug with all the way over here in Australia): The Battle For Gilneas

I spent last night finishing up my post and scheduled it for this morning, figuring I’d give myself a break and edit it right before work.

Then I saw your post go up this morning and was like… how does Gnomey DO that? That’s easily the 3rd or 4th post we’ve both done in a 24 hour time.

I thought yours was FAR more entertaining and full of helpful, NEW tips – I’m all “wah wah fight at the flag wah wah,” but you looked at the situation realistically, because, let’s face it – your teammates are going to screw you over, might as well get them first!

Yeah it’s a great addon.. from memory it performs the same in PvE as well, which makes it easier spotting those pesky healers in heroics.

I noticed the names Prelimar and Gnomeaggedon came up a couple of times. Thanks for your support… when I haven’t posted in a while, my 1st thought is… “Prelimar is waiting and will be disappointed if I don’t post something… anything…”

ha — don’t feel any pressure to post on my account. while i love to read whatever you post, i know you’re busy and have lots of RL things to take care of, too. i know you’ll post when you can, and when you do, it’s always worth the wait.

also, i read elsewhere that BfG is level 85 only? boooo, my little worgen hunterling won’t be able to go there for about 75 more levels, in that case… and i’m not even sure he’s going to make it that far. learning a new class is fun, and i’m liking being a hunter so far, but i’m a mage at heart. : )

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